Posted at 11:42 GMT on Tuesday 21st August 2007

By Appocomaster.

<AppocoCH> Good evening everyone. Sorry this clashes with the football, but no one's perfect
<myk> It's alright for Appoco, his team have already played.. :P
<AppocoCH> only one goal has been scored so far, so we can pray that the other matches will be almost as boring as the liverpool one :p
<AppocoCH> *2 goals
<AppocoCH> :(
<AppocoCH> firstly, I'll hand over to myk for a couple of announcements :)
<myk> Ok
<myk> I think I'll start on a good note
<myk> The long awaited Passport/Portal system is coming in to place over the next few hours, maybe tomorrow morning. It is really nice, I should know because I have spent ages coding it. It will have a lot of nice features.
<myk> I will detail them in an announcement once it goes live over the next few hours.
<myk> However, feel free to ask any questions within this Creators Hour if you so wish.
<myk> Now, I have some bad news
<Markb> :(
<myk> Well, I think it's bad but there we go..
<AppocoCH> :( it is.
<myk> I have handed my resignation in to PATeam, I am leaving the game as an administrator, I may be playing next round or I might be gone for good.. I just would like to say a few thanks to a few people..
<myk> I want to thank my fellow PATeam members, they all have a rough job to do, it's a lot harder than it looks and they all do a superb job in my opinion.
<myk> I want to thanks my Support Team members as they have made my time as their manager a good one
<myk> and finally, thanks to you guys for giving me the opportunity ;)
<myk> Okie, since we have quite a few people joining, I've been asked to update on what some may have missed.
<myk> Okay, to recap, there is a new Portal/Passport coming live this evening or tomorrow morning. I will make a detailed announcement about it all, or you are welcome to ask in this Creators Hour about anything
<myk> I have also just announced my departure from the game
<myk> Thanks ;) I'll pass back to Appocomaster :)
<myk> cheers mate!
<AppocoCH> we are sorry to see him go and will have trouble replacing him as head of support and as a coder, I know ;(
<AppocoCH> to re-iterate what's in the topic, if you want to ask us questions /msg CH_Bot your question
<AppocoCH> or, if you're really enthuastic, just /query ch_bot and ask questions as *someone* did earlier!
<AppocoCH> a minor announcement from me
<AppocoCH> whilst the speedgame has unofficially been running all round on round 21 code, on Friday it'll be reset and updated to Round 22 code
<AppocoCH> well, maybe tomorrow :) depending on time limits
<AppocoCH> so on Friday evening we'll be able to open signups
<AppocoCH> and on Saturday we'll start one of what's possibly many speedgames
<AppocoCH> I usually add a few custom hacks to allow for private galaxies and so on :)
<AppocoCH> (and higher score limits)
<AppocoCH> so
<AppocoCH> on with the questions
<myk> shall we get on then ?
<AppocoCH> .nqp
<AppocoCH> hmm
<AppocoCH> there's a problem that CH_Bot doesn't seem to recognise me as an admin
<myk> .nqp
<myk> or me :(
<AppocoCH> manual it is then :p
<AppocoCH> ahh
<AppocoCH> .nqp<CH_Bot> (Q 1): <Smudge> when do we get the final word on the support planet rule? fiery said that she would be doing something about it. if nothing yet why not scrap it for a round and see what happens?
<AppocoCH> thanks to Markb
<AppocoCH> we're currently discussing a lot of the support planet issues with alliances
<AppocoCH> we have a draft document that was meant to be out byn ow
<AppocoCH> *by now
<AppocoCH> hopefully it will be today or tomorrow
<AppocoCH> it aims to clarify a lot of the rules
<AppocoCH> not just those relating to the support planet rule
<myk> nice to have an announcement to put on the new portal ;)
<AppocoCH> it's not a simple enough issue to really get into here; it's related to alliance limits, what alliances are, and so on
<AppocoCH> but we do hope to have it up soon.
<AppocoCH> I know that we promised this a while ago and I apologise on behalf of Fiery that this isn't done yet
<AppocoCH> .nqp<CH_Bot> (Q 2): <Smudge> are jolt going to do any advertising soon or is that a pipe dream?
<AppocoCH> currently they're not looking to do external advertising
<AppocoCH> but perhaps :)
<AppocoCH> they did actually pay a graphics designer to do the skin for myk's portal :)
<AppocoCH> .nqp<CH_Bot> (Q 3): <Reese> so is the size of the population of the planet going to come into affect R23? Anything you can tell us about it?
<myk> It's a nice skin too :)
<AppocoCH> it's not currently planned to. This was a good idea that's got derailed by other things, I have to say. We'll see what we can do with it. Using actual people often ends up involving even more maths than the production page, and I know how well that went down :P
<AppocoCH> (as opposed to percentages that we have now)
<AppocoCH> you end up with some sort of logarithmic function to keep the bonuses the same
<AppocoCH> or everyone gets practically 0 bonuses at the beginning of the game and huge ones at the end
<AppocoCH> .nqp<CH_Bot> (Q 4): <Smudge> are structure killers going to be changed at all [the cap that they kill]
<AppocoCH> yes, they'll be changed to 10%. 5% is a bit conservative
<AppocoCH> .nqp<CH_Bot> (Q 5): <Smudge> any updates on the PA portal or is that sidelined again?
<AppocoCH> see ^^
<AppocoCH> :)
<AppocoCH> .nqp<CH_Bot> (Q 6): <Syron> How will stats be changed for the coming round?
<Stats> i won't change a bit!
<AppocoCH> http://pirate.planetarion.com/showt...ad.php?t=195171
<AppocoCH> the in-game stats will change. that's a thread discussing the changes
<AppocoCH> as Stats pointed out, it won't change :p
<AppocoCH> .nqp<CH_Bot> (Q 7): <Smudge> will we ever have a nostalgia round? ie science vs war, ziks stealing?
<Lunar_Lamp> You saw it here first people, Stats talks!
<AppocoCH> :p
<AppocoCH> stats talks when you stroke him nicely
<myk> He's a puppet!
<AppocoCH> I did do something sometime
<AppocoCH> i think it was a year or so ago now
<AppocoCH> where we did have science vs war
<AppocoCH> I think it was called a "skill" session or something
<AppocoCH> where everyone was in their own galaxy.. or something else that I'd made up
<AppocoCH> ;)
<AppocoCH> it's possible we could do that
<AppocoCH> but that'd have to be on the speedgame server
<AppocoCH> which I wanted to run a speedgame on :(
<AppocoCH> it'd be fun
<Lunar_Lamp> Very old rounds are hard to replicate though, as the code wasn't backed up or saved for them (partially due to live updating of code in some instances).
<AppocoCH> last time I did have to hack quite a lot of code
<AppocoCH> but we do have true cloaked ships again
<AppocoCH> AND real EMP resistance again
<Lunar_Lamp> I'm not sure what the most recent round we have a full code backup of, but I think it might be ~round12 (but don't quote me on that).
<AppocoCH> round 14
<AppocoCH> we'd literally have to recreate most things manually
<AppocoCH> and that is quite time consuming for one offs, etc
<AppocoCH> no matter how fun it is
<AppocoCH> :)
<AppocoCH> .nqp<CH_Bot> (Q 8): <Smudge> any speedgames planned?
<AppocoCH> yes, starting this weekend
<AppocoCH> .nqp<CH_Bot> (Q 9): <Syron> Heres an idea: Wear and tear on ships. Ie, ships have a total damage count that gets knocked down after every battle they fight in. Eventually they are almost worthless and die more easily because they are 'old'. Freshly built ships last longer, etc. Is this something that has crossed your minds and might it ever be implemented?
<AppocoCH> we'd need to store the age of every single ship
<AppocoCH> an easier way to do it would have ships auto "expiring" each tick
<AppocoCH> but that's not really the same
<AppocoCH> whilst it increases realism, it's not really that viable a choice to be honest. and it'd make bcalcs pretty impossible (similar to the idea of majorly customized ships on each planet)
<AppocoCH> sorry :(
<AppocoCH> .nqp<CH_Bot> (Q 10): <Smudge> are jolt going to invest any money into the game [ie not just "marketing"] to show that they are commited to the games future?
<AppocoCH> they've always said that if someone can justify investment they're willing to give it
<AppocoCH> technically, free rounds are investments
<AppocoCH> :)
<AppocoCH> .nqp<CH_Bot> (Q 11): <Smudge> appoco in a dress - when will it happen?
<myk> yes
<Lunar_Lamp> Having said that, they did pay someone to make the skin for the new portal.
<AppocoCH> sorry, I'm so enthuastic with questions :(
<Lunar_Lamp> Soon, hopefully, on the proviso I don't have to see it.
<AppocoCH> you'd have to get me drunk.
<AppocoCH> very drunk
<AppocoCH> and that's quite an interesting challenge
<AppocoCH> as I don't drink and would probably realise that my mineral water had been spiked :p
<myk> I've seen him in a dress and he wasn't drunk ;)
<AppocoCH> what!!
<AppocoCH> that's slander
<myk> lol
<Lunar_Lamp> PLEASE, next question. Mental images *shudder*
<AppocoCH> my hairy legs
<AppocoCH> .nqp<CH_Bot> (Q 12): <TcO> Are you working on fixing the bug that screws up stealing when you use both rangers and pirates in the same attack ? Will it be fixed next round, or should we still not do it? the bug i am talking about is were it is divided 50-50 between the two types of steal ships, even if you didn't send enough of one kind to max cap, wich make you loose ships.
<AppocoCH> yes
<AppocoCH> it's a real pain
<AppocoCH> i'm working towards it in the beta testing to try and get it to work properly
<AppocoCH> I think it works now actually
<AppocoCH> there's another steal issue caused by all ships having the same init though, which is my new problem
<AppocoCH> the game just breaks to keep me busy :p
<AppocoCH> .nqp<CH_Bot> (Q 13): <Smudge> are scanners who give the community scans in #transcendancy at any risk of being closed next round?
<AppocoCH> no, after Fiery's discussion
<AppocoCH> they weren't really before, but even more so now
<AppocoCH> .nqp<CH_Bot> (Q 14): <Smudge> to avoid complaints about res hording with regards to production why not include the value of the res in production somehow in score? ie value + production value / 2 = overal value?
<AppocoCH> that'd only eliminate one of the risks
<AppocoCH> that of people covert opping and storing their resources
<AppocoCH> and tbh, it's not an easy thing to do
<AppocoCH> the dictatorship stealth bonus will be dropped for next round
<AppocoCH> so if they want to repeatedly find and covert op targets, good luck to them
<AppocoCH> it's a very different way of playing
<AppocoCH> but it's not that easy
<AppocoCH> you still have to covert op every few ticks to do it properly
<AppocoCH> .nqp<CH_Bot> (Q 15): <lustig|GW> can we accually have different stats this round please?
<Stats> like what? me in a dress?
<AppocoCH> after Monroe had created his stats and then modified them in the last 2 rounds, I offered Game and Keizari the chance of doing stats
<AppocoCH> I believe Game is entirely responsible for the ones given
<AppocoCH> and I do admit they're possibly closer to r22's stats than r22s were to r21
<AppocoCH> I shall speak to both him and Keizari
<AppocoCH> and also the beta testers
<AppocoCH> I admit it's a bit boring not having changed stats, but on the other hand people used to complain that stats changing all the time was a bad thing and it would be nice to have one set of stats, so ...
<AppocoCH> .nqp<CH_Bot> (Q 16): <BanskuZ> When was the first version released?
<AppocoCH> Planetarion first started in 2000, officially (I believe?)
<AppocoCH> but I'm sure the beta testing was in 1999 at least
<AppocoCH> .nqp<CH_Bot> (Q 17): <Gmand> wheres myk going????? he got a better deal? :P.........jk wish ya luck myk
<AppocoCH> myk? :)
<myk> pfft, if only I was getting a better deal..
<myk> I am opening a new business, a computer store
<myk> I need more time to put all my efforts in to that or it will fail.
<myk> I'll still be drifting about on here a little, not too much though.
<myk> Btw, thanks to those who have pmed me with nice comments, much appreciated :)
<myk> .nqp
<myk> :P AppocoCH?
<AppocoCH> oh
<AppocoCH> .nqp<CH_Bot> (Q 18): <Assassin|Away> Just a question to myk, are you leaving PA Team now becuase you know the passport is going to blow up and you thought you would start running now while you still can? ;)
<AppocoCH> adding more of them
<myk> Lol
<AppocoCH> ;)
<AppocoCH> (questions)
<Lunar_Lamp> Haha - he'd better not be. If he breaks my servers, I'm going to wales to sort 'im out.
<AppocoCH> the passport / portal is going to work fine
<myk> It'll explode certainly.. but in a good way, it'll be the answer to a lot of problems :D
<AppocoCH> .nqp<CH_Bot> (Q 19): <Fatrick> any chance of gaining xp for killing ships?
<AppocoCH> no
<Lunar_Lamp> (but I have confidence it will work)
<AppocoCH> it's actually a common-held misbelief that this is true
<AppocoCH> whilst this is a war game, there's no current plans to add xp for killing ships
<AppocoCH> though maybe in the future this will change; I don't know!
<AppocoCH> .nqp<CH_Bot> (Q 20): <Helios> will the population stuff be fully active next round and how will this work?
<AppocoCH> it'll be basically the same as this round
<AppocoCH> .nqp<CH_Bot> (Q 21): <Mistwraith> so are clusters attacks really going .. is it written in stone .. and are u making sure there is a stake in the heart of it so it never gets resurrected ?
<AppocoCH> yes, yes, no
<AppocoCH> never say never ;)
<AppocoCH> it's been and gone before
<AppocoCH> but it was fun when it lasted. Maybe it'll come back in speedgames, cluster wars etc :)
<AppocoCH> I'm a hoarder, I don't like throwing away ideas
<AppocoCH> :)
<AppocoCH> .nqp<CH_Bot> (Q 22): <sahib> if pirates and rangers fight together in a combat, the stealing goes completely wrong. will this bug be fixed for next round?
<AppocoCH> I think it's fixed already
<AppocoCH> I thought it was fixed in the r22 combat engine
<AppocoCH> but it appears not
<AppocoCH> it seems fixed in the beta testing though
<AppocoCH> from the tests that I've done
<AppocoCH> .nqp<CH_Bot> (Q 23): <Naps> how much is the speed games gona cost
<AppocoCH> they'll be free, as always
<AppocoCH> .nqp<CH_Bot> (Q 24): <TcO> If Spinner is considered as a god how is Pateam related to that? would you consider yourselves as demi-gods? minor gods? or mere mortals with special abilities ?
<myk> Lunar_Lamp .. ;)
<AppocoCH> Spinner was one of the creators!
<AppocoCH> if you count the number of times i've broken the servers and everything else
<AppocoCH> I wouldn't even say I have special abilities :p
<AppocoCH> well, not 'good' ones anyway
<myk> Appocomaster is a god, regardless of what he says ;)
<AppocoCH> what! lies :(
<AppocoCH> I want my cloud then
<AppocoCH> a real fluffy one
<AppocoCH> and lots of attractive girl-angels
<AppocoCH> :sigh:
<AppocoCH> :)
<AppocoCH> .nqp<CH_Bot> (Q 25): <Aryn> if people wanted to volunteer to help pa how could they go about doing so?
<AppocoCH> the best way to do it is to contact myself or one of the other members of the pa team
<Lunar_Lamp> By the sounds of it, sending attractive girl angels to appoco would be a good start.
<AppocoCH> if you have an idea of something you don't think is being done well and you want to help rectify this, so much the better
<Lunar_Lamp> Indeed, on a more serious note, if there's a way you feel you can or want to help out with, let us know.
<myk> I started as a volunteer to PA through meeting Appocomaster, so I think he's a good place to start :)
<AppocoCH> as then you know the problem and hopefully the solution!
<AppocoCH> myk: via the chief question asker, I think
<myk> yups :)
<AppocoCH> you might have to poke me a few times
<Lunar_Lamp> Even if you just have a one-off thing you'd like to do (e.g. rewrite the manual *hint* *hint*), it would be appreciated!
<AppocoCH> lol
<AppocoCH> help is always appreciated :)
<AppocoCH> even if we're too stressed to show it :p
<AppocoCH> .nqp<CH_Bot> (Q 26): <Colax> Whats happening with the advertising on our own web spaces? i asked this last CH and was told by Kal i think that he would get back to me
<AppocoCH> advertising Planetarion?
<AppocoCH> I assume you mean advertising PA on your own webpages
<AppocoCH> we have some banners somewhere, I think
<myk> no i think he means the other way around
<AppocoCH> oh
<myk> I can answer this?
<AppocoCH> sure
<myk> with the portal?
<AppocoCH> we have room on the portal? :p
<AppocoCH> but go ahead
<AppocoCH> <Colax> i ment the way u said \o/
<AppocoCH> (that \o/ was mine)
<myk> Basically, on the new portal users will have a blog type system where you can put in your personal websites and such ;)
<AppocoCH> but feel free to describe your portal :P
<myk> oh okay ;) well at least i got to plug the new portal a bit :D
<myk> i'll do that later, i believe Assassin has put in a good question about it
<AppocoCH> I promise to try and find some banners
<AppocoCH> somewhere
<AppocoCH> we can use
<AppocoCH> unfortunately, we had some nice ones made
<AppocoCH> and that was pre round 20
<AppocoCH> and they had "4 races" all over them
<AppocoCH> .nqp<CH_Bot> (Q 27): <Assassin|Away> Serious question now. This new passport/portal. For people who dont know what we wanted for the past few rounds, can somone explain to us what this one will do at all or do we have to wait for the anouncement of release?
<AppocoCH> there :)
<myk> (Yes Elcs, Assassin had a good question)
<myk> Okie, this will be a long one i think ;)
<myk> The new passportal (see what i did there) will be the main place a user signs up to play Planetarion. All the games will be shown in a list and you will be able to sign up if they are open and available to you. We are using the new portal as a gateway to all the games and it will provide each user with their own static account.
<myk> We currently don't have it linked to the forums, but it will be in time.
<AppocoCH> notice how unspeakably brave we are for announcing it *before* it's fully up and working? :P
<myk> There are a lot of features of the new portal, I won't mention them, you can signup and see once it is live :)
<AppocoCH> it's not live :p
<AppocoCH> finished? :)
<myk> I will put up an amazingly detailed announcement about it, there is so much I could write about it :)
<myk> yea
<AppocoCH> :)
<AppocoCH> .nqp<CH_Bot> (Q 28): <hairy-laptop> is there any plans to create multi battles for example if a planet is attacked by 2 people landing on the same eta tha are not from the same gal or alliance will they battle before landing on the planet or maybe the fleet with most value kills the fleet with less value
<AppocoCH> no
<AppocoCH> the only possibility that came close to this was friendly fire
<AppocoCH> where attackers hit other attackers not in the same alliance/galaxy as them
<AppocoCH> no doubt at much irritation to bcalc makers
<AppocoCH> ;)
<AppocoCH> .nqp<CH_Bot> (Q 29): <DonTirri> will MoW actually have some purpose at r23?
<AppocoCH> yes!
<AppocoCH> wait, aren't you in the beta? o.O (this honestly isn't a planeted question)
<AppocoCH> I've added an interesting link that you have to show certain information about your planet. Alliance HCs get it for alliances, and MoWs get it for the galaxy
<AppocoCH> MoWs can also scan whole galaxys in the same way that alliance scanners can
<AppocoCH> .nqp<CH_Bot> (Q 30): <Assassin|Away> Also another question. I want to buy in bulk (credits) any chance we can up the bluddy thing without me having to buy 2 lots of 30 or so?
<AppocoCH> you'd have to contact Jolt about that
<AppocoCH> but I'm not sure how much demand there is for adding that one in
<AppocoCH> :s
<AppocoCH> .nqp<CH_Bot> (Q 31): <Gmand> think appoco may be wrong with dates poss 98/99 :P who know lol
<AppocoCH> yeah, possibly! I'm not perfect
<AppocoCH> (that was when the game started, btw)
<AppocoCH> .nqp<CH_Bot> (Q 32): <xenonive> Could it be possible to sell stolen ships as sometimes you steal ones you dont fancy using or just dont like ?
<AppocoCH> no
<myk> he's demoted to demi-god now then ;)
<AppocoCH> it's always funny to defend with 'useless' ships to get them stolen :p
<AppocoCH> really, not at the moment
<AppocoCH> .nqp<CH_Bot> (Q 33): <Smudge|football> will we ever get flag ships?
<AppocoCH> no
<AppocoCH> :)
<AppocoCH> by flag ships it's meant one special ship that gives the rest of the fleet bonuses
<AppocoCH> it's an idea that's gone in and out of fashion a bit in the past (I think it's in one or two places on the suggestions forum in various forms) but there's no current plans to add it
<AppocoCH> .nqp<CH_Bot> (Q 34): <Death|Food> will governments change next rd?
<AppocoCH> the stats will, but the format won't
<AppocoCH> .nqp<CH_Bot> (Q 35): <Dexter> question Can the 72 hour window between leaving and joining an alliance be shortened to say 24 or 48
<AppocoCH> the reason that this was implemented was to punish ship jumpers
<AppocoCH> however, I guess that with the whole alliance score contribution, I guess this is less of an issue
<AppocoCH> though it still allows a fair amount of time for retals from the alliance
<Lunar_Lamp> (yes, we realise that creator's hour is becoming somewhat of a misnomer on both counts now, however, there are still questions to answer)
<AppocoCH> there's a possiblitiy the time might be dropped a bit
<AppocoCH> (we started late!)
<AppocoCH> maybe to 48 ticks
<AppocoCH> you've earned a postit on my monitor
<AppocoCH> .nqp<CH_Bot> (Q 36): <Smudge|football> when will the default forum skin be fixed?
<AppocoCH> Kal is working to fix several forums issues at the moment
<AppocoCH> the problem is that Jolt changed their advertising banner sizes
<AppocoCH> I'm not sure if it's readily possible to change the default forum skin
<AppocoCH> we could change everyone's skin to one that worked (perhaps?)
<AppocoCH> I'm not sure
<AppocoCH> I believe we may be getting a new forum skin
<AppocoCH> but that's not 100% confirmed, so don't quote me on it
<AppocoCH> (not that that'd stop anyone from quoting me ...)
<AppocoCH> .nqp<CH_Bot> (Q 37): <Smudge|football> will PA ever be at a lan party? granted jolt dont like multiplay but why not jolt have there own one or something. or let jolt hire out a hall for a PA meet!
<AppocoCH> Jolt are willing to have LAN parties such as the one we tried at TG, where you can all play on a PA server from a location and we block all other IPs
<AppocoCH> but in general, they can't approve people carrying their own pcs (such as mine) with game code on to LANs
<AppocoCH> due to security risks
<AppocoCH> nor can they approve paying someone for a day or three carrying a Jolt server around
<AppocoCH> (cos they're heavy)
<AppocoCH> so possibly
<myk> argh, i could do with some cash ;)
<AppocoCH> but most Planetarion people at LANs don't do any gaming anyway
<AppocoCH> there's too much alcohol
<AppocoCH> .nqp<CH_Bot> (Q 38): <Smudge|football> how about xp for killing structures?
<AppocoCH> no :(
<AppocoCH> .nqp<CH_Bot> (Q 39): <devour> is xan (the race) gonna get a better end of deal ?
<AppocoCH> possibly
<AppocoCH> xan are traditionally one of the races that are often under powered simply because mid-end round they're scary
<AppocoCH> they have generally more roids and value than anyone else their score
<AppocoCH> and they have lots of big ships with pointy teeth that kill everyone
<AppocoCH> they're often immune to up to 4 out of 6 classes
<AppocoCH> which is pretty good going compared to say, cath, who are immune to 2-3 generally
<AppocoCH> .nqp<CH_Bot> (Q 40): <Syron> Speaking for all the ziks, any chance of gaining xp for stealing ships?
<AppocoCH> hahahahah
<AppocoCH> no
<AppocoCH> .nqp<CH_Bot> (Q 41): <elfy> when will the enxt round start?
<AppocoCH> (sorry that was a bit harsh - but really, I don't think it's going to happen. it's a good idea though!)
<AppocoCH> next round signups open 24th August and ticks start 31st August
<AppocoCH> .nqp<CH_Bot> (Q 42): <TcO> you know on the production screen if you click a ship you get a description of many rounds ago ^^. Have you forgot about this ? if you won't update it maybe just take it out ?
<AppocoCH> we will update it
<AppocoCH> it sort of got lost last round
<AppocoCH> I'll personally deligate it to someone this round :p
<myk> Just a quick butt in, there will be a slight change to how to sign up to the new round, I will post a guide exactly on how to do it with the new portal.
<AppocoCH> I think that's about it
<AppocoCH> so in summary, we're going to have a speedgame starting this friday - I'll mail everyone, and it should be up on the new portal too!
<AppocoCH> (the announcement, I'm not sure the signup thing will happen through it yet)
<AppocoCH> the speedgame will be basically round 22